Sugar Cane Melancholy

The sugar cane is rising green,
Rows press close along the road
I pass, Moses-like in a parted verdant sea

Last year a hurricane blew through.
It beat and battered down the stalks
And it felt as though I was wounded too.

The mill and its outbuildings in the distance
Slumber in the liquid summer heat
Like a sated overseer and his languid hunting hounds.

Too soon the mill will stir again and chuff
Feeding on the cut and crush of cane.
Fed by trundles trudging down the road

Detritus of stalks like debris in fear discarded
Evoking images of refugees in flight
Before the clank and crunch of advancing infantry

Beside the mill a mountain of bagass
Berift of sugar sweet, so sour now
Like the bile of old men.

This a reverie, no more than such
As I often pass this way bent upon
My own, my waning Western road.

R. Douville 2012
(Note: Also posted in poetry updates)